


He Stayed

by SableGear0



Category: Hyper Light Drifter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Feel-good, Gen, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Slice of Life, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 09:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21455965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SableGear0/pseuds/SableGear0
Summary: Post canon. The Guardian reflects on his guest's choices after their shared quest finally comes to an end.===Cross-posted from my DeviantArt: SableGear
Relationships: The Drifter/The Guardian (Hyper Light Drifter)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	He Stayed

I didn’t expect him to stay.

Truth be told, I didn’t even expect him to survive.

When he dragged me back home, all the way from the edge of the southern wastes, I figured that would be the last I saw of him. I remember he stayed long enough to be sure I was alright, but I don’t remember him leaving. I don’t think I was awake.

Then days later there was a quake, and a knock at my door.

He knocked.

When I answered he was leaning there on the frame, half dead. There was a trail of blood leading back to the town square.

He had _knocked_. Instead of just coming in, he had staggered his way back and _waited_ for me to answer the door. I didn’t understand why. I still don’t.

It was only a few days until he was up and about again. A tense few days– and a miracle as far as I was concerned. It was raining the first day I saw him up. I came home to find him sitting by the window, watching the rain. He looked my way when I came in, with those strange dark eyes. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. I didn’t have any words, but I smiled at him. And, I think, he smiled back. Just a little bit.

He stood when I came closer. He moved slow, clearly still hurting, but he was on his feet. That proud little stranger, on his feet after all that he’d been through.

Standing.

Still.

And still with me. I told him he could stay for as long as he needed. Or as long as he wanted. I was glad for the company, and he was still recovering. I watched his movements go from pained and stilted to loose and fluid again as the days turned into weeks. As soon as he was able, he was helping. Unprompted. He didn’t like to hunt, but he would come with me on patrols around the town, or come home with scrap material to salvage or sell. He’d help me clean up around the house, or stay up late with me translating the ancient texts I’d brought back from the monastery to the north so many years ago. Somehow it didn’t surprise me that he was fluent in that old language. Though he only ever wrote it.

He never spoke a word. Even as the weeks became a month, and then another. He never spoke. And I began to wonder why he was still with me. I knew that Drifters, his kind especially, had to wander. It was a need to be filled. Compulsive, for some. And yet he stayed.

Was something wrong? Perhaps he was still injured. Maybe something internal still pained him, something he could feel but I couldn’t see. Or perhaps his wounds were more permanent than they had seemed. Maybe he knew he would never be in shape to travel again, and it was simply safer to stay.

A season passed. The weather turned, grew colder. That silent stranger –my friend– still stayed. And still helped. If it was a wound that kept him with me, it didn’t prevent him from clearing snow and cutting ice. Or splitting wood and fixing generators. Scrounging for fuel in the cold. I don’t know why I had been so convinced it was something physical that made him stay. Perhaps because, until the solstice, I had never heard him speak.

It was the longest night of winter. The town was snowed in, but the sky that night was clear and littered with stars. My friend had long since established a favourite place to sit; a small worktable by one of my front windows that gave a clear view of the square and most of the town. He could sit there for hours. Whether lost in thought or keeping vigil, I could never tell– his strange dark eyes inscrutable. I always hoped he was daydreaming. To think of him worrying about that thing beneath our town...

It chilled me.

I sat near him, slid a mug of hot cider across the tabletop. He reached out without taking his eyes off the sky, fingertips touching the rim of the mug as though he might play it like a wineglass.

“Thank-you.”

I thought I had imagined it, the sound so unfamiliar I wasn’t sure at first it was a voice. I watched him turn his head to look down at his drink and saw his lips move. Indeed, it was a voice. His voice.

“Thank-you for letting me stay.”

Rough, quiet but not timid, a hint of an accent I’d never heard before. It made me speak softly as well, despite my shock.

“You’re welcome. Honestly, I didn’t think you would.” He said nothing. “I figured... I don’t know. I figured you’d leave on your own when you were ready. Like a bird.”

Like a bird with a broken wing that you take in from outside. One you keep like a pet until it leaves of its own accord. I didn’t finish the thought out loud. I don’t think he understood. He took a drink and studied me for a moment, head tilted, eyes– maybe concerned? It was hard to tell.

“Do you worry you’ve been caging me here?”

“No,” I did my best to smile when I shook my head, “Like I said, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. I’m just a little surprised, is all.”

He looked outside again. At the stars, it seemed. Silent again for some time while we finished our drinks. Then his attention drifted down, just a bit, and his expression changed. To what exactly I couldn’t tell, but something distant, colder. He was looking at the town square.

“There never was a cure.” He closed his eyes, head tilting down. “She used us.”

“The Jackal?”

He nodded, eyes still closed.

I hadn’t considered that, but on reflection, it made more sense than I liked. “That may be, but neither of us have coughed since you came back. I’d call that a cure.”

He opened his eyes. “I don’t think I was supposed to come back.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.” I really did appreciate his company, though it didn’t feel right to say it just then.

He looked down at the tabletop, fiddled with the mug in front of him. I could see his mind turning. At length he spoke, looking up at me.

“I stayed because I wanted to. You know that, right? I know you’ve been worried that it was because of my injuries. And...” He lifted a hand to his chest, just below his heart, “Yes, I do feel my old wounds sometimes when I overexert myself. But I’ve stayed because I wanted to.”

I was touched. Both that he’d noticed my efforts to accommodate what I thought was an injury, despite my attempts to be subtle; and that he’d chosen, of his own unbound will, to remain with me.

“I...” he lowered his hands, hiding them under the table, “I like it here. Would you let me stay through the spring?”

“Of course.”

“And–?”

“For as long as you want.”

He looked up at me and smiled, really smiled, for the first time. “Thank-you.”

We spent our first winter together as if we’d lived that way our whole lives. In the spring I watched his moods brighten with the sky and warm with the weather. In the summer he told me plainly that he needed to roam. But he never went far, and always came back to me. Like a bird. One that nests in the same place every year and can be counted on to return to its aerie. He would always come back. For the autumn chores, for the winter work. My quiet friend.

It’s been years. And I don’t think there’s a thing in the world I’m more grateful for than him.

Like I said, I didn’t expect him to stay. I didn’t even expect him to survive.

But he did.


End file.
